Family Support Service

Bringing up children is exciting and enjoyable but it is also demanding, tiring and stressful. We all need help at times as none of us are trained to be parents.

The Family Support Service is committed to delivering services, in partnership with families and other professionals, which protect and promote the welfare of children in need who live within a community setting. It is our priority to offer support to enable you and your family to live safely together. We work to make our services accessible for all sections of the community and involve our service users in their design and delivery. Our services are responsive to individual needs.

We are part of Poole Children and Young People's Social Care and have a large team based at the Ted Webster Family Centre. We work with families with children assessed as being 'In Need' to improve life chances, by preventing family breakdown and subsequent need for children to come into care.

We also help children return to their family when they have been looked after by the Local Authority and help prevent breakdown of fostering placements. This may involve supporting some 16 to 17 year olds to live independently, depending on their needs.

All help is planned and agreed by those involved (especially the family) in a regularly reviewed ‘Children in Need Plan’. We help families to help themselves. The help depends on what is needed and may focus on:

The behaviour of a child

Improving parenting skills

Providing advice and support to the parents, child or other siblings

Accessing other services such as specialist counselling or parenting groups if needed

Improving family links with the local community

Some of the ways in which we can offer help include:

To help parents to successfully meet the needs of their children

Provide support to your family to enable you to live together better

Provide opportunities for you to learn how to deal with problems and become more confident

Services that recognise that all children and adults have different needs, and to respond to those needs

To prevent family breakdown and the subsequent need for children to become ‘looked after’

To think creatively with families about extended or ‘kinship’ family care for children

To help families and children to be re-united following a period of accommodation (in care)

To help foster carers and ‘looked after’ children to promote more stable placements

Provide support and services that work with you to protect your children from harm

To receive family support, an assessment of your child and families needs need to take place to ensure that Social Services are best placed to meet these needs. Your involvement in this assessment is important, as it is our aim to support you to safely parent your child.

If you would like someone to contact you regarding our family support services then please complete the Family Support Services Enquiry Form or call us on 01202 735046 and ask for the Assessment Team. Our contact details are on the right hand side of this page. Back to Top